8/07/2011

As usual we will be at Otakuthon, although this year it will not be as a guest but simply as exhibitors.

The convention will be held August 12-14 at the Palais des Congrès de Montréal (201, Viger Avenue West, near Métro Place d'Armes). Check the Otakuthon website for details.

We will be at table #502 in the Exhibition Hall (opened Friday from 5:00 pm - 9:00 pm, Saturday from 10:00 am - 7:00 pm and Sunday from 10:00 am - 5:00 pm) and will have LOTS of anime & manga goodies to sell at very good price.

8/05/2011

Moving ended up a longer and much more complicated experience than expected. Everything was (and is) done by volunteers who are available at best one or two days per weeks (we all have jobs and families to take care of and keep us sane) so the work was progressing slowly. I want to take this opportunity to deeply thanks everybody who gave us their time and moral support (particularly Martin and Bob). You can't even begin to know how much it is appreciated.

First we had to pack the content of the office and warehouse in preparation of the move. Since we were moving into a smaller space we also had to identify the material that was obsolete or no longer needed in order to get rid of it (by recycling or donating). Easier said than done... It's incredible the quantity of material we can accumulate over the years. There was LOTS of stuff to go through and pack.

The move itself was a long and excruciating process that left most of us physically and mentally exhausted (I've grown muscles that I didn't know I had!), so we had to take a few weeks to recover before passing to the next step. (Anyway, buying a new property is a long, tiring and complicated process in itself and there was a few delay before we could take possession of the place).

Reorganizing the office (as a usable working area) as well as the warehouse and the shipping area was quite a challenge considering that the new location offered less space. Everything was quite crowded at first. And, considering that the move was a little disorganized and that boxes were often not or mis-labelled (or simply buried under a pile), it was complicated to gather all the material we were used to work with (I am still looking for some stuff). We were half through that when disaster first stroke...

It happens that the city street in front of the new warehouse is badly designed and has defective water drainage. The warehouse was flooded with the first big thunderstorm of the summer. The previous owner had failed to notify us of the problem and therefore we failed to anticipate such situation. Some precious reference material (temporarilly stored during the office reorganization) and stock back issues were damaged by water. We had to go through all the boxes to identify what was salvageable and what was not. That process took a while. Such flood have reoccur many times since then, but with a lesser impact (everything is now stored at a safe distance from the floor), but it still creates lots of humidity and makes the working space less comfortable. We are working with city officials to solve that situation. Unfortunately it has caused some more, unexpected, delays.

It took a while to have the phone and internet connections back in order and I have been quite busy at work lately (at it six days per week). The heatwave didn't help, nor the fact that we are in the busiest part of the summer (with two festivals to cover and a convention to prepare for). That's why the move that I thought *might* hinder shipping orders for a couple of months ended up definitely causing a much bigger delay. We are sincerely sorry for this.

We are now trying to finish organizing the shipping and process orders as fast as we can. Hopefully everything should be shipped by september. Again, we are quite sorry for this extraordinary delay -- hopefully we'll be back to our “regular delay” soon ;) ...

I am not sure we'll have time to email individually all of you who made order inquiries and were concerned about their orders (but we'll try).